A sixteen-gun HMS Belfast

ArnoldAmbrose · January 28

Gidday All, like many here I much prefer the 1/600 scale in model warships. When I restarted modeling about 25 years ago I recommenced where I'd left off as a kid - with Airfix 1/600 scale ships and I've pretty much stayed with them ever since.

But I'm running out of subject kits so I modify them now, to actual ships and also 'what-ifs', which I enjoy doing. When I do these I try to make them as plausible as I can.

Most fans of RN WW2 ships will know of HMS Belfast. What some may not know is that the reason for her larger size over the other Town/Southampton subgroups is that it was intended that she and HMS Edinburgh be armed with sixteen 6-inch guns in four quad turrets. But a suitable turret couldn't be built AFAIK so they were ultimately fitted with improved triple turrets instead.

But what if a suitable quad turret was developed after all? She may have looked something like I've made here. My model depicts HMS Belfast armed with sixteen 6-inch guns (4x4), eight 4-inch AA guns (4x2), four 40mm Bofors (4x1), sixteen 2lb pompoms (4x4) and twenty 20mm Oerlikons (4x2, 12x1). She also carried six 21-inch torpedo tubes and a chute of depth charges. To make the quad turrets I used two triples to make one quad. This made them rather large though, and required a lot of reshuffling of other structures.